Research
Energy balance
Classically activated (M1) macrophages reprogram their metabolism to favor aerobic glycolysis and lactate production over oxidative phosphorylation, leading to TCA cycle interruptions and accumulation of metabolites like citrate and succinate.
When immune cells fight acute threats, they switch to a fast, inefficient energy mode (glycolysis) that produces lactate and specific metabolites. This metabolic shift is a key part of the inflammatory response.
StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
In response to pro-inflammatory stimuli, macrophages reprogram their metabolism to create energy and biosynthetic precursors rapidly... favors aerobic glycolysis over OXPHOS... As a result of this metabolic reprogramming, the excess carbon from glycolysis in classically activated macrophages is secreted as lactate instead of being used to produce acetyl-CoA from pyruvate, and the TCA cycle is broken at two points, after citrate, and after succinate, resulting in the accumulation of these two metabolites.
Why this rating
Well-established immunometabolism concept reviewed in detail.
Source
Meta-Inflammation and Metabolic Reprogramming of Macrophages in Diabetes and Obesity: The Importance of Metabolites
Sara Russo et al. · Frontiers in Immunology · 2021
DOI 10.3389/fimmu.2021.746151
narrative_reviewCited 246×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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